Reflections and insight from first year at Furman - Page 2

George2007 · 06-01-2009, 07:07 PM

thanks lovemydogs. what sport does you D play if you dont mind my asking?

George2007 · 06-01-2009, 08:16 PM

lovemydogs, just out of curiosity what sport will your D play? thks

GRITS80 · 06-01-2009, 08:41 PM

Many thanks to all of you who have offered such thoughtful advice over the past months. We are excited that our daughter selected Furman and are looking forward to a wonderful four years.

Given that we are still in school, she hasn't even started to look at the freshman course options. I guess that will have to be the first thing on her list once graduation is over. In the meantime, I have a totally different kind of question to throw out there. Does AT&T provide good cell phone coverage for the entire Furman/Greenville area? It's time for us to renew and/or cancel our contract and I don't want her to be stuck with subpar reception or exhorbitant fees to break the contract. Past experience has taught us not to rely on the coverage maps from the cellular companies. Our only other option is Verizon.

ernchurl · 06-01-2009, 09:46 PM

My D has AT&T and feels the coverage is just OK. The service was spotty in the dorms and she often had to go outside to use her phone. Verizon is better and many of her friends switched from AT&T to Verizon.

Georgiatwins · 06-02-2009, 02:10 AM

Would have to unfortunately for At and T, echo ( no pun intended) emchurl's comments about At and T's call reception on campus. Both s and D had significant reception issues throughout the year...

Momdod-your DD has a very full schedule planned for first semester-Soucarmom and others are offeringg some sage advice-see what advisor has to say about options to cover GER's and seminars over the next two years. With regards to Bio and chem-our two and their friends have truly used ratemyprofessor.com to research faculty before selecting classes. Believe I mentioned this before, but D's advisor actually suggested this site, since many students participate in this program and students have found the ratings to be fairly on target. Both kids have several friends who are pre-med and have used this system for intro courses in bio. and chem. As for psychology-Furman's program is excellent and enjoys a strong national reputation . For some reason, tho, D's advisor, cautions her students NOT TO TAKE into. psychology as freshman due to difficulty and grade deflation in that course. I looked at grading data for that course and plurality of kids have B-B-. I believe the psychology program at FU is somewhat neuropsych. based-so taking that course along with 2 science classes will be an enormous mount of reading and written homeowrk. If possible, I would suggest taking the non-writing seminar the first semester in an attemp to lighten the load just a touch.

op2misticmom · 06-04-2009, 03:06 PM

HI, I am a rising sophomore parent and after reading CC for well over a year now, I thought I would just chime in with a few of my own personal comments to many of the questions raised. First let me say we are thrilled with Furman, we are from New Jersey and our D adapting to the southern way of life was very easy. Despite what may be thought of the Furman demographics being mainly southern there is a significant number of students from the northeast as well as other parts of the country. Although most of my D's friends are not from the NE, she had on her hall last year 4 girls from NJ alone. Now about telelphone service-- Verizon is the way to go. D had and has Verizon but many friends did not. So in the first few months the non verizon students discovered there was lousy service and eventually did switch to Verizon. Unfortunately, those first few months we had to increase the text message package 3x to accomodate the volume our D rec'vd and sent as so many did have ATT, which limits the number of characters they will accept from another carrier os our D needed to send 2 messages for every one rec'vd in many cases. I am happy to report we are now back on a more reasonably priced text message package! I did also want to mention a word about advisors. It sounds like many have gotten very good advisors, sadly, our D's situation was not as great. When we attended orientation and met with her assigned advisor, we felt he was fabulous, he talked a great game. The long and the short of it was, he was never reachable, never in his office and never replied to emails. My D needing to discuss her second semester schedule and finally had to reach out to another advisor for help in selecting her courses. The advisor apparently needs to "flip a switch" to enable students to register for classes and on the last day of registration she rec'vd an email from him saying he was out of the country and he released her record so that she could register. She never had one conversation with him and definitely no guidance. I have to say her schedule was terribly challenging and her GPA did suffer a bit, but still acceptable, although not glowing. He again contacted her via email at the end of the year, again without any guidance to next year's course selection or face to face but to advise her she would be getting a new temporary advisor as he would once again be out of the country. This by the way was not an isolated situation with my D only. So my advice to all new students-- be vigilant with your advisors and if you don't hear back timely address the situation immediately, my D did not want to seem like a pest and also did not want to report the situation. I am sure this is the exclusion not the norm, but just be aware that this can happen. Regarding registration-- After looking at the course selections, go to [url=http://www.ratemyprofessor.com] and get some feedback on the professor teaching the course before you make your selection. There are many great professors at Furman, but there are also some that you would rather not take classes from, so do your homework! I am sure there are many other subjects I can fill you in on, so feel free to call on me. Good luck to all ---parents and students.

momdoc · 06-05-2009, 01:54 PM

THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!! Everyone has given such thoughtful and useful advice. We're a bit confused though, because the specific advice on ARMS for pre-health students is to take BIO and CHEM both semesters freshman year. Then, to be able to take PHYS sophmore year, you have to have taken CALC, which means D will have to take CALC, too (she wants to take it first semester anyway, since it will be fresh in her mind from senior year). I suppose we'll have to contact the online advisors. I'd like to know before she gets there in August, since if we fill out the request form correctly now, we should have a better chance of getting the professors recommended on Ratemyprofessor.

On a more mundane topic, anyone have experience with T-Mobile at Furman??

momdoc · 06-06-2009, 10:10 AM

For any freshman parents who have questions about class choice: don't hesitate to contact the academic advisors mentioned in the ARMS instructions. We sent some questions off yesterday afternoon and heard back briefly within an hour, in more detail later last night (on a Friday night, no less!). The professor who helped us was extremely helpful and consulted with some other professors. It really helped us know what was possible for our pre-health D.

The link for the advisors is on one of the pages at the towards the beginning of the ARMS instructions. You can call or email. Good luck!

kelsmom · 06-06-2009, 07:52 PM

Chiming in about psych ... D took intro psych her first freshman semester from Brewer. Her advisor encouraged her to take it from him. Her reasoning was that if D was considering being a psych major, this was the place to begin & she should begin ASAP. She warned D that he is a hard grader, but told her that it was well worth the effort he expects students to put forth. D was very glad she took the class. It was hard & she got a B- (her lowest college grade - but it was higher than many older students in her class received). She learned a lot & thought it was very, very interesting. She decided not to major in psych, but she doesn't regret having taken the class.

momdoc · 06-06-2009, 09:35 PM

Thanks for the tip, Kelsmom. D took the AP Psych exam, so if she gets a 4 or 5, she'll test out of Intro. I think she's decided to take HES 101 as her elective--she's trying to decide between physical therapy or psychiatry as an ultimate career. She'll take a psych course second semester, either intro or whatever one you have to take next (statistical methods or something like that). But it's always helpful to know who the good teachers are!

What is your daughter majoring in now?

kelsmom · 06-06-2009, 09:59 PM

She may not want to skip intro psych if that is going to be her major. D chose to take intro psych even though she could have AP'd out. Again, her advisor was very helpful in that regard. She said that she learned a lot that she did not learn in AP.

By the way, my D changed 2 of her 3 classes (trimesters then) after she got to campus, on the advice of & with the assistance of, her wonderful advisor.

Actually, my D transferred after freshman year. She liked Furman a lot, but her interests changed - thanks to her Engaged Living program, in all honesty. Her EL program was Vocations: Finding Your Calling, and she DID - it was at another school, though. She is at Vanderbilt, majoring in Medicine, Health, and Society. However, she had a great year at Furman (aside from her randomly assigned roommate, which was NOT a good match). She misses the beautiful campus, the good friends she made, and the always-accessible profs (not that Vandy's aren't accessible - but they are not quite like Furman's in that regard).

future chem dad · 06-12-2009, 01:50 PM

My D just finished her registration. She is looking to take Chemistry, French and Intro to Psych. with her seminar. She is a Chem major so the Chem class is the first priority. It sounds like a good start with nothing insurmountable. She is hoping to get some Calc and Chem credit for sure with AP tests.

Thanks for the phone comments, we have Verison already. I guess roommate news comes next. D is getting very excited about Furman! I can't believe they put together a book of incoming freshman, never heard of the idea, but I like it. I think this helps the transition process.

Faline2 · 06-15-2009, 01:50 AM

Psychology and Chemistry are two departments at Furman known to be rigorous and to have outstanding pathways to graduate schools. Furman trains for clinical psychology paths--aiming for full research projects, presentations and publications.. and in the Furman undergrad psychology major...labs are a big foundation in that dept..teachers are warm and accessible but the coursework is demanding and difficult.
I would consult with an on campus advisor before I would skip via APs the Intro to Psych course at Furman due to its status as a foundation course. (I also had Dr. Brewer as a freshman advisor in 1974...and got up the nerve to take his course when I was much braver and on my feet...as a rising junior. He is amazing.)

The new science lab facilities...I hear are pretty stunning.